1. Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to a method of printing documents from a user workstation, and also relates to a printer driver, a computer program implementing the method of the invention and a computer-readable medium carrying computer code for performing the method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printing documents from a user workstation is a multi-step process that includes, activating a printer driver for submitting a digital document file to a printer, specifying print process settings in the printer driver, and commanding the driver to submit the document file and the settings to the printer. In the printing process, values of settings are either individually or collectively specified, and a collective specification is a selection of a user-selectable pre-stored set of settings, which is referred to as a “template”.
A related art method of this type of printing process is typified by a publication in Research Disclosure of September 2001, p. 1506, ref. no. 449055: “Proposal To Configure A Printer Driver For Customized Formatting/Finishing Of Print Jobs.” According to this publication, a printer driver window includes multiple predefinable buttons, each associated with a set of settings values. By clicking such a predefined button, the user applies all associated settings values at once. Individual resetting may then still change these values. Buttons may be predefined by a user or be downloaded from a central server.
Although such pre-programmed buttons (or “templates”), add to the convenience of a user by providing fast and consistent programming of print settings for a small number of standard print formats, every new format a user wants to use must be programmed and stored in advance. In practice, however, a user frequently introduces a new format during the process of printing and forgets to save it in advance. When the print command has been given, the printer driver disappears and if the user wants to apply the new settings again, she has to reprogram the driver again.